Explore "John Holdsworth, Chief Mate" by W. Clark Russell on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
If a man has one good reason for being grateful for living in these times, it is because they are _not_ coaching days.
The old stage-coach, the Wellerian coachman, the spruce guard with his horn and his jokes, the fat people inside, the gruff people outside, all contributed a picturesque detail to the age they belonged to; but I have generally found that the more picturesque an object is, the fitter it is to be surveyed at a distance only.